Black Mirror, mediated affect and the political

Black Mirror combines sensation and critique in an affective formalism that, we argue, yields a proliferation of possible viewer responses. Our analysis focuses on this unique combination of affect and form, in order to examine the relations between mediated affect and the question of the political. Through its refrain of mediated publicity as the tragedy of the viewing commons, Black Mirror offers a pointed social critique realised through narrative strategies of inoculation and traumatised witnessing. We argue that Black Mirror’s signature narrative tactic, the traumatic twist, yields a proliferation of possible viewer responses that exceed the easy parameters of acceptance and rejection; and we suggest that the question of the political is addressed through Black Mirror’s multiplication of ‘maybe’.